Many new homes and offices now include appliances and computing devices, which operate in combination or may be controlled by one or more master devices. For devices to operate in combination, typically, each device is made aware of the capabilities of the other devices in the household via local discovery protocols. Typically, in local discovery techniques one of the devices broadcasts or multicasts a list of device capabilities and a device identifier over the local network, while the other devices of the household listen for the broadcast. If a listening device desires to utilize one of the capabilities, the listening device issues a request using a device identifier and the two devices establish a local or device-to-device communication channel.
However, the number and types of discoverable devices has and continues to significantly expand. Unfortunately, this increase in the number of discoverable devices in a user's home or office has resulted in an increased network burden on the local router or gateway, as the increasing number of broadcasting and listening devices consumes more and more of the local bandwidth.